For Love
by MiaGhost
Summary: Elliot broods over his recent break-up, and struggles with his feelings. Sequel to For Life, Part 2 of For Life, For Love, For Blood and Glory.


~.~

Despite what he'd said to Wraith a few days ago, Elliot was hurting. It was true, that he'd known things with Katie would never last. (She was, he hated to admit it, only the latest in a growing string of brief romantic endeavours.) But it still stung, to be rejected, to be left behind because of something that hadn't even happened. And it was getting old, having his friend be the easy excuse.

Dating felt like it was getting old, too. Hell, maybe _he_ was getting old. Either way, it just… wasn't working for him anymore.

He stared at the tray of food in front of him in silent contemplation. He was trying not to think about _why_ the dating scene was getting old, why the short flings with adoring fans wasn't cutting it, anymore. Why the fun had gone out of it.

He knew, he just wasn't gonna say it, even in his own head. Not that he could say it out loud if he wanted to either, he'd probably fumble all the words, and even if he didn't, who would he say it to? His squad? Path was great and all, but a heart-to-heart wasn't one of his best skills. _Plus_, he was the biggest blabbermouth sometimes.

And Wraith? She'd shut him down, he wasn't stupid. And he wasn't foolish, either. No way he was risking what they had going, the perfect groove they had in the Arena. Not when it was leaking into their lives too, and throwing them together more and more often.

He liked her company. He wasn't going to lose it over a stupid thing like this.

Besides the two of them, who else was there? His mother? She had enough on her plate without his worries too. Elliot was okay without a bunch of close friends. He'd never had many growing up anyway, his brothers had been all the best friends he'd needed.

So while it'd be nice, if he got close to more of the others, he wasn't gonna force it. If it was only Path and Wraith? Well, then he was goddamn lucky to have them, even if he couldn't really spew his innermost secrets and insecurities the way other people could with their closest friends.

But, where did that leave him? Right here, hurting. Over some girl who probably didn't even realise that Mirage was an act. Over her accusations that he'd been fooling around with someone else. Elliot Witt was many things, but he was no cheat. Okay so maybe he'd bent rules, before, or kept cards up his sleeves when he was playing Poker to do tricks, _for fun_, but that wasn't the same. That wasn't cheating, that was messing around. Being a cheat was something different. Something way worse. It bruised his ego to be called it, and not that anyone else would know, but it _hurt_.

And on top of that, Wraith didn't deserve the accusation either. She was many things too, and hardly any of them what people sometimes said. She wasn't cold and unfeeling, she was private. She wasn't cruel, she was blunt. And she wasn't skulking around taking unavailable men to bed. She was his friend, who'd turned up on his doorstep drunk and practically incoherent, who needed somewhere familiar to sleep it off.

It was an unavoidable part of knowing her, this urge inside of him to protect her. Which was a ridiculous thought to anyone who'd ever met her, Wraith needing protecting. But there you had it, he felt compelled to anyway. Maybe it was because they'd been squad a long time before they'd really been friends, a helluva long time before she'd let him past her walls. Maybe it was just that instinct, that she was his teammate and he'd kill for her.

Or maybe it was that she wasn't as untouchable as everyone thought, and that he was one of the few people who knew it.

Maybe he needed to _get out_ of his own damn _head_.

"Rough night?"

He jerked in surprise, lifting his gaze to find his eyes meeting the familiar blue of hers. Well, that was one way to stop brooding in his thoughts. He forced a smile, and tipped his head to one side.

"_Late_ night." he corrected coyly, grinning more brightly as her eyes rolled and her lips curved with humour.

"You don't have the glow." she said instead of rising to his bait, settling beside him at the corner table and stirring her eggs around her plate.

Trust her to catch him by surprise like that.

"The… glow?"

Her gaze lifted again and she blinked at him. Her words had been so matter-of-fact, and there was little really that he'd found could make her blush, but she almost did then, the faintest pink blossoming across the pale white of her cheeks.

"Yes. 'The glow'. Satisfaction, I think they call it." she teased him in that strange calm way of hers, spearing herself a forkful and chewing.

It was his turn to roll his eyes, and his turn to feel the heat crawl over his neck just a little.

"And you can recognise the glow, can you?" he retorted, saying the words before he fully realised how harsh they sounded.

He froze, opening his mouth again to reword, to iterate that he wasn't meaning what it sounded like he was highlighting. Wraith glanced away, seeming suddenly very interested in her eggs. The air tensed a little, and Elliot felt awful.

"Lack of experiencing it doesn't mean I can't recognise it." she said, but her words were soft, and he relaxed.

She knew he wasn't mocking her. She always knew, didn't she? When he fucked up the words? She always knew what he meant to say, even when he couldn't say it. Her eyes flickered sideways and caught his, and he couldn't have stopped himself from returning her small smile even if he'd wanted to.

Her head tilted away and her face took on a sly shade.

"I've seen it on you often enough to know it."

Elliot's face grew warm for real then, and he spluttered dramatically, dropping back in his chair with a hand on his chest as though she'd wounded him. She laughed at his charade, a real laugh, and the sound made his heart soar. It was rare and kind of beautiful, a Wraith laugh, the real ones. She was a quiet kind of person. Mostly her amusement was best seen in the corner of her eyes, or the short sharp huffs she made, or the snorted breaths. But a _real_ laugh, was something else.

It was something Elliot would hold secret in his heart of hearts, that sound, and the pride that came along with knowing he'd never seen anyone but himself earn it.

"You know a gentleman never kisses and tells." he mock scolded her, wagging his finger and everything.

Her expression was bright and open as she turned those sapphire eyes his way again. Elliot could fall into them, if he wasn't careful, eyes like that. It'd be the dumbest thing he could do, sure. But he'd never claimed that he wasn't capable of dumb acts. He checked himself daily now, just in case.

"Who would you tell, if they did?" she smirked, "Path doesn't really understand it all, not properly."

Elliot shrugged, stabbing his fork into a chunk of bacon and popping it into his mouth, talking around it.

"I could tell you."

There, before his eyes, was that same shadow of guilt from the bathroom last Saturday, entering her expression. As quick as it had appeared, it was gone, and her smile back in place. But he'd seen what she would no doubt pretend she wasn't still stuck on, her part in his latest re-entry into singleton. For someone so secretive and withdrawn, she sure took a lot of things to heart, in his opinion.

"Involving me in your love life only seems to cause problems." she returned wryly, and Elliot felt his heart falter.

He looked at her, and she looked back at him, and for the moment that their eyes were connected he couldn't stop himself from searching. Was it hope, that he could see her thoughts laid bare across her face? Ego, that he of all people could be the one to see past all those defences, into her depths? Was it hope that blistered delicately in his chest at the mere notion that perhaps, she was thinking right then what he was thinking?

Was it folly to think it, to wish it, to want it, knowing full well the disaster one wrong step could cause?

"Yeah," he answered, fear winning out as it always did, "I guess."

Was it only wishful thinking that he was reading… _disappointment_?

His own must have shown on his face, for her expression grew gentler, the lingering traces of whimsy gone.

"There are more fish in the sea." she tried, sounding awkward, looking awkward, very much out of her depth.

If anything, though, that only lent her words more weight. It wasn't lost on him that she made attempts like that, stepping from her comfort zones and her own disciplines, to make him feel better. To show she cared about him.

"I know." he answered gratefully, his smile undoubtedly giving away more than he meant it to.

She smiled too, sitting there beside him in the quiet of the canteen on an early Thursday morning, and they ate in the comfort of their own silence.

Elliot's mother had once told him as a child that people often did strange things for love. It hadn't made an awful lot of sense at the time, not to a ten year old just discovering girls and heartache, though of course it had as he'd grown older. She said that sometimes it was the people for whom we did the strangest things that we loved most deeply of all.

Elliot wondered where this fell, on that scale of strange, his bond with a squad mate who only ever laughed for him, for whom he'd die and kill without blinking an eye, the woman who shone so brightly in her own, small ways that he'd suffer any number of accusations from angry girlfriends rather than lose her.

And beyond that, he wondered what further strangenesses she would make him do.

~.~


End file.
